Floods? Killings? Famine? Theft? Plenty of idiotic behavior? Lies? Life is full of stuff that take the words out of your mouth but not for a happy reason. The question I’ve been asking myself lately is “How do you get past that?” It surely can’t be by looking at the world around, cause at best you can turn to nature… and see it full of… well, today it’s mostly full of oil. Tomorrow it might be something else. The point is – rarely are you able to see the beauty crafted by the hands of God and be encouraged by it. It’s like mankind got its hands on a bucket of sh… O.K., poop and thought it was time to paint straight on top of the canvas, cause see – it wasn’t good enough. Whatever we try to improve on our own we mess up. Badly.

Maybe it’s my poor vocabulary, maybe it’s just cause I’m tired, but right now I can think of a whole bunch of phrases that basically express the meaning of “screw up” (not to mention the single word expressions), while I can only think of a couple that express the opposite. Funny, huh? Anyhow…

The question is: How do you get past that? How do you keep on living in the midst of all that’s being painted with an unpleasant substance? When you see injustice – what do you do? Or do you not see this… you keep your eyes closed? What do you see when you close your eyes? I, being myself, can’t close my eyes. It was all fine till the point when I realized I can’t change it all… actually, I can’t change almost anything. Now the stuff I see bothers me so much, I can barely stand it.

I’ve been telling myself “don’t seek justice, this is God’s job.” It does help most of the time. I needed something more, however, and happily I got a reminder tonight. For a brief moment (an attosecond, perhaps) I closed my eyes and saw…  something that’s worth closing your eyes and seeing.

Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders. In a loud voice they sang:

Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing:

To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!

- Revelation 5:11-13, NIV

I can’t keep my eyes closed, but I’m looking forward to a day when open they will see this same image.

Disclaimer: parts from this writing are true. Others aren’t. You alone are guilty for how you interpret this text. The photo has nothing to do with the story. Welcome!

Yup. That’s all you’ve got to know… Mind you, it might even be all you’ll ever know – It’s a Bulgarian thing. Unexplainable. Mind blowing. Darn, it’s hard to even find words that encompass the complexity of this particular breed of stupidity.

Some claim it’s just part of the Balkan worldview. I don’t believe that. Others say it will get better… Erm, I’m not really convinced. I do agree that much of it is a result of the 45-years-long communist mind game. Right, blame it on communism and off you go with clean hands. At least that’s what most people over here have been doing for the past… what – 20 years? Pathetic. But that’s not my point.

To illustrate better – here’s a couple of examples which have come at the expense of many of my (now) white hairs and fried nerve cells (remember these pretty much don’t regenerate).

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When God was finished with creation he looked at it and it was very good. One should note that “very good” in God’s eyes is indeed – very good. So it went on for a while like this, until one day God gave another look to creation, but this time the picture was different. This time the Lord did not rejoice, but instead “he was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain” (Genesis 6:6, NIV). He decided to wipe away what he had made, but Noah found favor in His eyes. So he spared him. This went on for a while until one other day the Lord said to Noah and his sons “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Genesis 9:11, NIV).

I cannot help but wonder what went through God’s “mind” between the time of completing creation and the events of Genesis 6. Even more – what changed from Genesis 6 to Genesis 9? There’s little we can know about it, besides that God set off on a mission – a mission that’s one of a kind.

See, when, let’s say your TV breaks down and you want to continue watching TV – you have two options. Either repair it or get a new one, the latter being the more convenient, easier one. While the flood was God’s way of starting all over again – more convenient and certainly quicker, his covenant with Noah and later on with many others is rather astonishing. He basically said “I won’t get rid of you, but will do whatever it takes to fix you up – make you look good again; as good as you were when I first looked at you.” This might also seem easy until you grasp the scale of the repair that needed to be done. Consequentially, that decision didn’t come at no expense for God. The toll was the death and resurrection of His Son – a rather high price, but as I said – a lot needed fixing.
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Some call it fellowship, others simply a relationship and I’ve chosen the name partnering in life. Neither one, however, can fully reflect the meaning of the Greek κοινωνία (koinonia) better than the passage from Acts 2:42-47.

Today we tend to take relationships for granted. The Internet offers them at practically no cost, and so does the local school, sports club… oh, yes – even the church. So far – nothing wrong. Sadly enough, the fragrance of the koinonia seems to have faded away. Instead of being like a fresh Spring bloom, it’s more like a frozen vegetable which has then been microwaved – you wouldn’t know it smells like something if it weren’t for the big fat colored label on the package that tricks your mind into believing it does. We’re either really dumb fools or really lazy and indifferent to our own lives.

We like having partners in life as long as they don’t require much of us. As long as they don’t disturb out comfortable and well planned and organized living. It seems to me that the fancier mobile phones one can buy, the less we care about sincerely maintaining our relationships. Perhaps this would be quite a shock to Johann Philipp Reis (whom I credit as the inventor of the telephone). Nevertheless, my point is – the things that ought to draw us closer to each other seem to actually scatter us apart.

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Our prayers toward God speak a lot about our faith, as well as about the way of living which we have. If we constantly pray for material benefits, financial security and independence, perhaps even perfect health, then these things must be more important for us than God is. Moreover, this is a sign that our life spins around them.

Jesus uses the example of worrying to show us how strong our faith ought to be and how we need to live and consequently – pray. Let us turn to his words from Matthew 6:19-34:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money. Read more…